Genocide

Close to the entrance of the Genocide Museum are mass graves and around the museum one can see flowers which have been left in honor of the dead. I am not sure why they are left all wrapped in plastic but these bundles were everywhere.

The graves are separated...families, children, men and women and the graves of concrete are surrounded by the living plants and trees from around the country. Out of death springs life.

I visited the Genocide Museum here in Kigali yesterday and moved emotionally and was very very impressed with the quality of their museum and dedication to those who lost their lives here in Rwanda during the genocide. The gardens are lovely and there is a garden of unity, division, reconciliation and protection. There are fountains and many many elephants and animal representations. Elephants represent long memory and this fellow has a cell phone to his ear and he is telling the world about the atrocities committed here in Rwanda and asking that all be aware...genocide is not new and it can happen again! Besides the mass graves there is a portion of this museum that reminds us of the genocide which occured in the Balkans, Namibia, the Holocaust, Cambodia and of course, here in Rwanda when the Hutus were killing the Tutsis.





Here is a portion of the wall remembering those who died by name. This wall is yet incomplete.



As I am writing about the horrors of genocide, I am listening to the bird chirping and watching the sunshine glisten off the greenery outside. God is good...out of ugliness grows beauty!





One cannot take photos inside the museum but there is a gorgeous stained glass window created by the son of a Holocaust victim that literally made me cry and I have been to Auschwitz and Dachau...hard to imagine the level of destruction these horrors have caused. Beatrice, our maid here in Eddie's house told me that she hid out during 1994 in the bushes with her oldest daughter.

I have been having issues with the blog the last couple of days so am not going to press my luck. More coming but going to post this so it actually uploads.